Church of Beethoven salutes Val

Worked for many years at Flying Fish Folk Records. We had a record distributor who would show up in an old pickup and load up the milk crates with LPs. He was always talking about Val’s Halla in Oak Park. When I finally moved here, 15 years later, there it was — still selling milk-crate sized musical goodness! Val’s tales at the Lake Theater’s 25th Anniversary of the Blues Brothers movie were amazing. Now she graciously helps emcee Church of Beethoven at Open Door. What an amazing treasure.

Val's halla, safe haven

Perhaps as great as the music I took home was the safe haven Val’s gave me.  I may have been an outcast, scared and leery in the school hallways, always an easy mark for those in need of a chump to take their frustrations out on, but Val’s was my home turf.  I loved music.  I knew vinyl.  I had home field advantage and no one ever dared to mess with me there.   Unlike most male dominated record stores of the era, this one felt extra safe as a female run enterprise.   I can’t thank Val Calimetti or her staff enough for that.   I know the Oak Park Arts District is not the hub of activity North Blvd. & Oak Park Ave. were, after all I’ve had a gallery space there for ten years, but I am so grateful Val’s Halla has made it to the 40th anniversary mark.  In this scary, crazy world I know there is a safe place for me.  May every awkward, unhappy, adolescence find their Halla.

Liz Gaylord

Val’s Halla is the spiritual home for this unrepentant vinyl junkie. Personal highlights from the last year include finding old favorites by the Del Fuegos, Kinks and Thomas Dolby, which were subsequently signed by the artists. The covers are framed and hanging on my wall, while the discs spin on my turntable. Val and Shane have also welcomed my band Ping and hosted our CD release parties. I love the people and the place! Happy 40th anniversary and many happy returns!

Join us at hallaPalooza to celebrate Val’s halla’s birthday! Weekend of July 28-29 in the Oak Park Arts District. Cool bands and refreshments at the 40 year old music mecca…

For me, the natural world is a place of healing & freedom. It is messy, ever changing, and holds so many spiritual lessons. I run to the woods when I’m sad…I hike through the woods when I’m excited to be alive.

Recently, our Lola Mading (Grandmother Mading) crossed-over to the Other Side. She was 94 years old and is very much missed. This prose-poem/koan rose up inside me on one of my morning tromps through my local woods near the DesPlaines River in Illinois.

Tracks

Lola is dead.

Snowflakes float, drift, gently fall

onto the bare, white meadow

where bootprints, ski tracks,

deer hooves, dog paws

make trails of gray spots

across frozen ground.

What signs of ourselves do we leave behind?

Lola Mading sang with her barkada,

in pointed straw hats,

a posse’s hymn of planting rice,

blazing suns, and stooped backs,

they who never relished snow.

I let memories of her wash over me

as my boots crunched ice.

Snow kisses the ground,

a hush, a silence,

shrouding runners’ footprints.

Soon, all will be covered —

and can we say we really lived?

My lola, grandma glittering

in gold and black gowns,

cheap fabrics richly sown

by her own gnarled hands.

The footprints she leaves behind

cannot be seen.

They show a woman,

two steps to the left,

a front hop,

skip, wiggle, groove

shaking at her Senior Prom

to make tracks as fast as she can.

Snowflakes glitter,

crystalline white and blue rainbows,

across the expanse of the meadow.

White-tailed deer, chocolate Labrador,

Cooper’s hawk, Filipina American woman,

Snow will cover all of our tracks one day,

making room for new life

each change of season.

– MGB

At around 4:20 p.m., we ran to our van. A storm was breaking and the crowns of the 50 – 100′ trees in our town began to dance. Branches broke off, leaves flew through the air, and rain drummed the van roof. Streetlights at major intersections had lost power. It takes us 10 minutes to get home during which time our 9-year-old kept asking us, “Is it a tornado?” Thankfully, it was not.

But it was one mean storm. When we arrived home, ten minutes later, here is what we saw:

Two major trees fell on our street

Transformer knocked out by a fallen branch

A branch shatters our neighbor's window

This used to be a streetlamp - top knocked off

Our neighbor's house engulfed by a fallen tree

On our street, everyone is okay. It’s amazing what 10 minutes of nature’s power can unleash. One neighbor had heard that the winds downtown were going at 75 m.p.h. Some saw the transformer spark and explode in our alley. The power is out for several blocks around us — but not in our house or the one next door. (So I have to post this fast before ComEd closes the lines completely to get them back up.) Another friend down the street saw branches flying through the air and heard the sound of trees ripping in half. (Poor trees!)

The beautiful thing is that everyone came outside to check on each other. I love the Midwest for its neighborliness and kindness. It’s good to see that everyone is okay. There’s a bulldozer outside, and police lines & officers guarding to keep people away from the live wires. That’s it for now…hoping everyone is home and cozy…

p.s.

My boy was worried about “our babies”, the seedlings in the veg garden. Gotta love it. Yes, the “babies” are okay. I checked.

I want to encourage anyone who reads this post to go outside for at least 9 minutes. Take a break. Touch some tree bark. Take your shoes off and wiggle your toes in the grass or the sand or even into some loamy soil.

It’s been a full & sometimes hectic 2 weeks since my boy has been out of school. I haven’t had as much time to just melt into nature as usual…so the last couple of weeks have felt off-balance. This morning, I went for a bike ride and stopped off at this small park in the northwest corner of town. There’s a beautiful, quiet strand of oak, maple, and elm trees that tower some 60 feet in the air. It isn’t huge, but when you need oxygen, it’s enough. Sunshine streamed through the trees. The balmy summer air kissed my skin.

My head has been full of travel plans, essays, articles, political rants about Sarah Palin, questions about feminism and motherhood, grief over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the transitions of dear friends moving, the excitement of weddings and births…the fullness and busyness of life. But, at some point, the thinking has to stop and the connecting with the deeper cosmos has to begin. Our bodies are lightning rods for experience.

So, 9 minutes for nature. (And if the experience goes longer than 9 minutes…? Awesome.) Try this:

1. Open the window, a door. Feel the sunshine on your face.

2. Listen for a bird. Who is it? How do they sound? Can you whistle that? Will they whistle back?

3. Touch a summer leaf. Feel the veins, the edges.

4. Rub the leaves of a tomato plant. Smell the sharp scent on your fingers.

5. Lie down on the grass, rest your weight upon the earth.

6. Go surfing. (This one’s for you, Sis.)

7. Sit on a park bench. Be still. Feel the world swirl past you. Be still. Hear the silence beneath the noise. *Breathe*

8. Take a walk around the block. Notice flower boxes. Notice gardens in your neighborhood.

9. Look up. At the sky. At clouds. At the moon that lingers in the morning. At the sparrows or sea gulls or hawks or June bugs. Feel the air thrumming with life.

Nature calls…even in small doses…

~ MGB